Recent political transitions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have shown how exclusion from decision-making processes leads people to create new channels to proclaim their rights.

As countries across the MENA region tackle the challenges of their nascent democracies, a session that looks to identify strategic directions for improved diversity in the Middle East got underway today at Salzburg Global Seminar.

The program, which takes place from today until November 6, is entitled ‘Getting Transition Right: A rights-based approach towards Diversity and Inclusivity’.

It is being hosted by Salzburg Global Seminar and the Arab Human Rights Fund and will focus in particular on four key countries in the midst of transitions that can pilot new approaches to diversity management: Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen.

Countries in the MENA region are very diverse, yet people have come together ignoring many of these distinctions to call for more open and equal governance systems.

Effective diversity management helps to instil greater acceptance of plurality and provides the foundations for social and economic progress.

The session will enable intra- and inter-country analysis of effective approaches to diversity management, to craft policy guidelines and recommendations to help ensure the realization of basic rights, and support the translation of policies into action.

Speakers at the session include Fateh Azzam, chairman of the Arab Human Rights Fund, and Amal Basha, described as Yemen’s most prominent advocate for human rights and chairperson of the Sisters’ Arab Forum for Human Rights.

Ann Elizabeth Mayer, author of Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics, and associate professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, will also be speaking.

Participants will engage in a highly interactive process of presentations, discussions and working groups to tackle and unravel some of the biggest questions surrounding this topic.

Working groups will present their recommendations at the end of the session before the group as a whole outlines the next steps going forward.